“A variety of factors, including family background and personal choices, influence downward mobility from the middle class,” said Erin Currier, project manager of the Economic Mobility Project. “This report provides valuable information for policy makers who want to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.”

The report measures downward mobility among black, white and Hispanic men and women raised in the middle class in three ways: the percent who fall out of the middle class, the percent who fall 20 or more percentiles below their parents’ rank in the income distribution, and the percent whose income is 20 or more percent below their parents’. Across the three measures, the report finds:

Those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall down the economic ladder than those who are married.
If men and women raised in a middle-class home obtain education after high school, they are less likely to be downwardly mobile.

The report also finds a gender gap in downward mobility, but it is driven entirely by a disparity between white men and white women. Thirty percent of white women fall out of the middle class, but only 21 percent of white men do.

Additionally, race is a factor in who falls out of the middle class, but only for men. The report finds that Thirty-eight percent of black men fall out of the middle, compared to 21 percent of white men.